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POLITICO 44

As Congress nears its end-of-year deadline to pass health-reform legislation, our elected officials need to look past politics to America’s patients. The American Medical Association is committed to health reform that makes the system better for patients and physicians, and fixing the Medicare physician payment formula is critical to comprehensive health reform. In order to move forward with new obligations, Congress must fulfill existing obligations to assure sustainability in the future.

Seniors and the disabled who rely on Medicare and military families who rely on TRICARE expect access to health care and choice of physicians. Without repeal of the underlying formula that projects steep payment cuts to physicians, that access and choice of physicians are repeatedly put at risk.

An overwhelming majority of Congress — Democrats and Republicans alike — are on record stating that the Medicare physician payment formula is flawed and should be repealed. But with the failure to consider the Senate proposal that would have created a path to permanently fix the payment formula, Congress failed to live up to the commitment it made when it created Medicare — to preserve access to high-quality health care for America’s seniors and military families.

The concern on the part of legislators about expanding federal deficits made this a vote on deficits — not doctors. In 2005, the cost of repealing the formula was $48 billion over 10 years, and physicians were facing cuts of 3.3 percent. Today, the price tag to permanently repeal the Medicare physician payment formula is $245 billion, and next year’s scheduled cut is 21.5 percent. It’s time to stop temporary band-aid fixes. The AMA shares concerns about growing federal deficits, but Congress must once and for all fulfill its obligation to senior citizens and the physicians who treat them. It is time to wipe the slate clean and acknowledge that Congress has no intention of imposing Medicare physician payment cuts of 40 percent over the next several years. Simply put, the longer Congress procrastinates in tackling the issue, the larger the price tag becomes for the American taxpayer.

Readers' Comments (3)

One massive sick joke is all this is. The government cannot even fix blatant Medicare fraud. Based upon their track record, to think they are going to improve anything is absurd.

Corruption, fraud, and waste are all you'll get for your trillions. You'll get a lot of substandard doctors too, because a lot of good ones are going walk away from this debacle. Who could blame them? Not I.

And the Democrats will protest, alibi, and deny saying, 'But we didn't mean for it to turn out this way!' You can see that coming already - 'Cash for Clunkers' was a good preview of coming attractions. Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, TARP... Yeah, they are going to fix everything all right. Sure they are.

The dems will just turn doctors into the boogeyman like they did the insurance companies the next time around. As a first year med student im starting to say to myself, I SHOULD HAVE GONE TO LAW SCHOOL!!!!!!! We have the best healthcare on the planet, despite what the UN and dems tell you. Every day it becomes more and more apparent that this bill is not about healthcare at all, it is about making as many people as dependent upon the federal government as possible. I always pictured myself as a doctor working for my patients, NOT WORKING FOR THE GOVERNMENT!